Out of Print Gems: "For a Few Dollars More"

Ennio Morricone is one of the all-time greatest film composers, and one of the few to have composed pieces as instantly identifiable as any by John Williams or Bernard Hermann. He managed to score an indirect hit in 1966 when Hugo Montenegro's cover of the theme to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly was held out the number one spot on the charts only by Simon and Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson"; Morricone's own soundtrack to the album hit as high as #4 on the album charts and hung around for more than a year. Previously, though, Morricone had also been instrumental in the success (and quality) of the film's kickass predecessors, A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More. Ugly's soundtrack had, in fact, been built pretty neatly upon the scores to the other two films, centered around ringing Stratocasters and echoing, nonlingual vocals. Both scores are outstanding yet hard to find. Fistful has been rereleased relatively recently in Europe and can be had at reasonable cost. More, however, is hopelessly hard to find, and so, enormously expensive - particularly given that the album is only 17 minutes long! Despite its brevity, the soundtrack packs an incredible punch: "La resa dei conti" is every bit as stirring as its more famous Ugly cousin "The Ecstasy of Gold," and the haunting pocket watch theme "Carillon" resounds long after the dwarf soundtrack (or the epic film) has finished. "Carillon" can be heard below; the whole soundtrack can be downloaded here.